Dr. James Malm: Reaching the Summit of His Profession
One could argue that Dr. James Malm ’91 RC PK has climbed to the top of the mountain, both literally and figuratively.
Since graduating from Penn State in 1991, Malm has earned his Doctor of Management degree and climbed a career ladder which has led to Colorado State University-Pueblo, where he now serves as dean of continuing education. Despite the daily demands of the job, though, Malm still finds time to put his recreation and park management degree to good use – he also serves as an adjunct professor of mountaineering at CSU-Pueblo.
Malm’s climb to the top is even more impressive when taking into account that he had no idea where his college and career paths would lead him. Take college, for example – after visiting University Park as a high school senior, the Bridgewater, New Jersey, native knew Penn State was the place for him. “The campus environment and the social energy were great,” he recalls.
The problem, however, was that Malm had no idea what he wanted to study. “I was originally enrolled in DUS (Division of Undergraduate Studies), which is a great way for students to figure out what they want to major in,” Malm says. “The problem was that I was having too much fun and wasn’t figuring that out … and DUS only allows you to stay enrolled there for so long before they expect you to figure it out.”
Luckily for Malm, fate intervened one Saturday afternoon during his third semester. While watching the Penn State football team play a road game on television, Blair Thomas’ picture flashed on the screen, along with his hometown and his major – recreation and park management. Although he didn’t know anything about the major at the time, Malm thought it sounded interesting; so, he decided to check it out.
“Once I learned more about the program, I knew it was the place for me – it fit my interests and my lifestyle perfectly,” he says.
One particular event that sticks out for Malm was a whitewater canoe trip he to through the Rio Grande over spring break during his junior year. “That whet my appetite for the west,” he shares. “I knew I would end up living out here someday.”
That didn’t happen without a few additional stops in the eastern part of the United States along the way, however. After graduating from Penn State, Malm spent a couple of years working as a parks superintendent for the city of Harrisburg, where he did a lot of special events planning.
Believe it or not, that experience actually led him down his current higher education career path. Malm left his position with Harrisburg to become the alumni director at Penn State Harrisburg. “In the early 90s, the alumni position was transferred from community development to marketing which gave me a chance to look at things from a different perspective,” Malm says. “I was a lot more involved in statistical research and data analysis.” It also prompted Malm to pursue a master’s degree in public administration.
Malm left Penn State to become chief administrative officer for the Division of Continuing Education & Economic Development with the Community College of Baltimore County. He left there to become dean of continuing education at CSU-Pueblo in 2005.
“Basically, my job is to extend the classes at the residential campuses as far and wide as I can,” Malm explains. Those efforts have taken him to Japan and China in the past year; they have also earned him accolades closer to home. Malm has been selected to participate in the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business “50-For-Colorado” program and has been designated a Certified Program Planner by The Learning Resources Network; he has also had an article on leadership accepted for publication by The Community College Journal of Research and Practice and included in international conference proceedings of the Society for Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery.
Despite the daily rigors of his job, however, Malm still looks forward to teaching and takes full advantage of the chance to teach two courses a year. “I was originally teaching management courses, but when the opportunity arose for me to teach a couple of mountaineering courses I jumped at it,” he says. This past fall, Malm taught a basic “Mountaineering Orientation” course to undergraduate students. As part of the course, he led students on an overnight trip to Humboldt Peak, one of the 14,000-foot peaks in southern Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo mountain range.
“Teaching the class gave me a chance to get back to my roots,” Malm says. Or, in Malm’s case, climb yet another mountain.
